The SS Puppy
by She'llBurnOurHorizons
Summary: "Compassion has no place in the natural order of the world which operates on the basis of necessity. Compassion opposes this order and is therefore best thought of as being in some way supernatural." Ziva, Compassion and the horror of human nature.


Just my little AU! take on Ziva and her acceptance of the supernatural... Chimera time line/ Au. You know the deal, I don't own NCIS...

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**_Compassion has no place in the natural order of the world which operates on the basis of necessity. Compassion opposes this order and is therefore best thought of as being in some way supernatural.- John Berger.  
_**

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"_What do your... astute, ninja-Mossad sense tell you it is?"_

"_in Mossad, part of the training is to be open to things you cannot see, or even understand."_

"_You mean the supernatural?" _

"_Call it what you want, not everything can be explained by the laws of the natural world."_

"_You believe in ghosts?"_

"_I do not not believe in ghosts. –pause- Or demons. Or monsters. We are on a ship called the Chimera _

"_I thought Chimera meant delusion or fantasy..._

"_In Greek mythology a chimera is a monster with a lion's head a goat's body and a dragon's tail."_

"_So you think they named this ship the chimera because there's a monster on board"_

"_They did not name it the puppy."- Chimera._

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Tony cursed, stumbling over a bolt along the floor in the pitch black. Moving towards the last place he remembered the rest of the team to be, he sighed in relief as the lights flickered back on, only to growl in frustration as all they did was flicker.

Moving further along the eerily deserted hallway, he glanced around a corner as the lights continued to flicker, giving enough light for a mere moment for him to notice a dark shape and an obvious dead end, before all went black once more. The outline was barely noticeable now, only enough for tony to realise it looked vaguely human.

"Boss?" he hedged.

"Ziva? Mcprobie?"

There was no response, in fact the person did not show any recognition of even hearing him, and so, raising his gun, he took that final step around the corner, hesitant- at last in the small, dead end.

Now that he was closer, he could see that, while the light directly above him was afflicted similarly to all the others on the ship, the light further down was not and had instead been shattered, one small ending of the once bright halogen lamp faintly struggled to provide light, barely denting the darkness, while the other pole-like globe had fallen from its holder, hanging precariously down from the ceiling.

That small, feeble amount of light was enough for tony to determine that this area of the ship looked particularly derelict- somewhat dusty and obviously unused. The figure was huddled at the very end of the hall, shaking, tucked in behind an exposed pipe which protruded from the wall and went down into the floor.

Suddenly, the light above flickered on once more and by the time the after image filtered from his vision, the figure simply was not there anymore.

Uneasy, he turned and returned back through the maze of unused halls and rooms. Feeling slightly more comfortable now the lights had returned, he strode confidently down the hall, feet stirring dust lightly as he moved.

Anyone less attentively trained would not have noticed, but his peripheral vision caught a slight darkening of a small hallway off the main pathway. Stopping, he turned to inspect and froze.

She stood there- his training as a crime scene sketch artist assessed her at no more than eighteen, more than likely younger, anywhere from fifteen upwards, he vaguely noted- her short light, hazelnut brown shoulder length hair tussled and thick, heavy straight fringe casting the top half of her face in shadow, enunciating the dark purple gouges underneath her empty pale green eyes, despite the fluorescent glow the hall held.

A large amount of her slightly skin was visible, looking as if she was slightly tan underneath an unnatural, sickly kind of pale sheen. Her clothes, like her hair appeared tussled, the majority missing and she stood, stock still wearing only a pair of dark blue panties and the hint of a matching singlet underneath a stark black, oversized black cardigan, fully buttoned – although one was missing- as if to protect what little modesty it could. One shoulder slipped, exposing more pale skin and a hint of a dark green hand print along her clavicle and shoulder area.

Her chin tucked in, eyes staring out and stance something he could only term as brokenly defiant, she made an eerie sight. Unspeaking, she simply stared, her eyes, previously hollow spoke of such horror before, as if from conscious effort, they became empty once more.

She did not move, even as he backed away, never turning from her before running as silently as possible- as far as possible. Only stared.

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Ziva was perusing the ship mate's personal belongings, and had become involved in reading a diary, when tony stumbled in.

"Did you complete your investigation of the ships layout, get, Dinozzo?" she enquired, tone blaze, not looking up from her reading.

"N-No, I mean, yea. It's done."

"Good." She smiled, shutting the book. Then you can accompany me on a search for an abandoned hallway. There are several references of undefined, how shall I put this... strange occurances, yes?"

Tony stared. "I really don't think that's a good idea,_ Zi-va_. I mean, it probably has nothing to do with the investigation, which we should really be concentrating on, agent _Da-veed_." He spoke, bravado back in place.

She glared. "I believe we were told to investigate the ship, Tony. If even the ship mates are calling something odd, it very well does merit_ in-vest-i-gation_. "

She huffed, and stood, giving her sidearm an almost subconscious stroke, simply to ensure it was there.

"If you shall not accompany me, I shall go myself." And she walked out.

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She stumbled into the hallway entirely on accident and strode through confidently. Unlike her peer before her, her footsteps left neither stirred dust not sound in their wake. Stopping in front of a rather large scuff mark on the floor in the dust, she sighed to herself and walked down the short corridor and opened the door at its end.

Moving into the room, she inspected it before crouching down near the rusting bed frame and reached under. Delivering a side- glance to the silent figure in the doorway, she pulled the mouldy chest from underneath it and, ignoring the flickering, struggling, swinging single bulb overhead (so different than the halogen lamps swamping the rest of the ship) she exposed the contents of the case to the soft yellow light for the first time in a long while.

Large gloves, a bottle of chloroform and a military issue hunting knife, all bloodstained, sat atop a ripped black garment, two smaller, deep blue articles, a pair of women's boots and a pair of jeans were closer to the bottom. As she picked them up a dark object fell from the shoes.

A wallet, which, on inspection, held several library cards which belonged to a high school girl( public, school and state)- which did not make much sense, being that, from the date of birth on the cards, she would have had to have been twenty by now.

The trembling image was now on its knees, almost but not quite within touching distance. She reached out a hesitant, wanting hand- and objectively, Ziva noticed she had elegant hands- to the last object in the case.

A small, plush animal, barely the size of Ziva's fist rested within the shallow chest, its glass eyes glinting in the soft, unearthly light given off by the image hopelessly grasping for it.

The brown puppy's sewn on smile never faltered, even as the echo of his owners hand dropped to rest in her lap once more and her face spoke of resigned defeat, a loss of all hope. Tears slipped down her face which would never leave a mark on anything but.

Carefully, Ziva placed almost all the objects back inside the case and pushed it back under the bed. Standing up, she courteously waited till the image flickered and was gone from the room before turning off the light and shutting the door. Moving back into the corridor, she took one last look at the soulful, lost eyes.

"Shalom, Leah."

And strode off.

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If the other members of the team had noticed her softer stride and her solemn countenance, as well as her harsh treatment of the only known crewmember, they did not say anything.

Later that night, as he snuck a look at her case notes tony (who by then had brushed off any odd occurrences as hysteria) could only stare bemusedly at the small note scribbled within the margin.

_The SS Puppy indeed._

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So... Thoughts? I know I was a tad vague here, but I'm hoping there was still enough content for people to understand what went on. If not... well, i'm always happy to explain :) Review?

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Edit: 26/3/2011

Ok. obviously, i was too vague. Before i explain, i would like to take a moment to exnunciate that that was an intentional move, being that the supernatural is always surrounded in mysticism, and as such, it wouldn't make much sense for a story about said supernatural to be incredibly straight forward, now would it? However, for your understandin pleasure, i present you with the literal, blunt, straighforward cliffs notes version.

The chimera was a creepy ship, and, to put it lightly, haunted as all hell. At least one of the shipmates was evil ( or, you know, a sicko, whatever floats your boat) who liked girls a little too much, which in turn led to kidnapping and all sorts of horrible things. Hey, it's an entire show based off of crime, i couldn't exactly make them all hugs and puppies, now could I? Anyways, After sicko was finished causeing the painstaking and agonising demise of our poor kidnap victim, he hid the evidence in an out of the way part of the ship. Then, obviously, things started going wrong for dear old Chimera, being that Miss dead and buried wasn't so pleased with the situation. Her "interactions" caused that side of the ship to be abandoned, hence the dust and stuff.

Tony, doing his job, comes across little miss dead and buried, and he, being not so open minded, runs. Ziva, who has been reading up on things around the ship in diaries, understands the subtext of whats going on an goes to check it out, mossad training and whatnot. She figures the girl just wants to have what happened to be recognised and for her not to be forgotten and too be conforted (hence the dog toy...), so Ziva goes through, finds the chicks wallet (who died at seventeen, three years ago, hence the age- date of birth issue (( hey, they were a super secret mission ship, obviously they were gonna be at it for a long time )))

Turns out the girls name was Leah, who was raped and murdered, evidently ( otherwise, why would the ghost chick be hanging around half dressed?) by the crew, which causes Ziva to be harsh to the cook guy, and when they leave, Ziva takes the girls wallet to give to the family for closure or something.

The SS puppy thing was a reference to the puppy toy. The puppy toy is explained away by the fact, in my imagination, the crew docked at a port once where there was a carnival, the girl was at a carnival and had won a prize when she got grabbed. Capeche?

Thanks for reading :)


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